Frame of Reference

Annette Goldsmith, editor

And so we meet again - miraculously. The latest crisis? No, it's not the heat wave, though that has been slowing us down somewhat... our virtual subscription list has disappeared! So please, if you're already a subscriber (and you all should consider it, since subscription is free), please subscribe again. If that doesn't work, do contact us, and we'll see what we can do. Speaking of contact, we've published more of your letters. We always appreciate hearing from you, so don't forget to write!

Nothing endures like a good story. We've kept Shandel Gamer's fine Alice's Academy paper on the background of the Golem legend posted: see how David Wisniewski's version stands up to the earlier ones. Tired of all the millennial buzz? As an antidote to Y2K, read Mary Beaty's rousing Monitor, in which dinosaurs and planets struggle to survive, and librarians are reminded of their mission. In My Own Invention, Mary Nix describes a mission of another sort, the innovative Reader-to-Patient volunteer reading program in two Atlanta children's hospitals.

In this issue we feature lots of authors and illustrators, including some famous Canadians. Start chronologically with Picture Window, in which Margo Beggs introduces Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon, the nineteenth-century artist who inspired the eponymous Canadian award for illustration. A winner of that award, Ian Wallace, shares his thoughts on artistic inspiration in Illuminating Texts; we've kept this posted and added graphics, so you can now see the illustration in question. We welcome back Looking Glass Lore, Jeffrey Canton's Canadian classics column, which considers Brian Doyle's early novels and their place in the Doyle canon. Be prepared to roll up your sleeves and head for the kitchen after you read Gabi Kupitz's Pig and Pepper, with delicious recipes from a literary smorgasbord. Revisit the Caucus-Race tour of author and illustrator sites so cunningly devised by Martha Scott. And to find out what they're all up to, read the gossip in Spyglass!

Sadly, several of our columns have descended Down the Rabbit Hole (into the archives) this time around, but will rise again. Check with us next time for In the Twinkling of an Eye, ykcowrebbaJ, and Mirrors and Windows. Technical problems still plague us, particularly with the Acrostic. Please be patient; a new diabolically difficult puzzle designed by Joanne Schott will appear in the next issue. And just to remind you, we now publish three times a year, so look for us around December 2. See you then!

P.S. Special thanks to TLG stalwarts Mary Graham and Katherine Matthews for getting this issue posted.

Annette Goldsmith is a Canadian children's librarian, reviewer, and storyteller living in Miami and cyberspace.

Volume 3, Issue 2, The Looking Glass, 1999

Site design and content, except where noted, © The Looking Glass, 1998. Send all mail regarding The Looking Glass c/o The Toronto Centre for the Study of Children's Literature. Images © Bernard Kelly, 1997. (Tenniel images in the public domain.) "Editorial" © Annette Goldsmith, 1999. Last update February 1, 2013.